Cooper Katz McKim
Cooper Katz McKim uses the business beat to show how rules, markets and money shape everyday life, moving easily between financial crime, regulation and the science behind daily decisions. He reports for NPR on business and economic stories, often in short audio segments that combine timely news with clear, accessible explanation.
Financial crime and the rules of the market
McKim focuses on how the financial system really works when laws, incentives and human behavior collide. In his coverage of insider trading, he explains why catching it has become harder as technology, new trading platforms and complex information flows change how people move in and out of markets. He looks at the tools regulators have, how enforcement lags behind innovation, and what that gap means for fairness and trust in the system. His business reporting stays close to policy and enforcement, making white-collar crime and market oversight understandable without losing the nuance.
Money, research and everyday decisions
Alongside market stories, McKim brings in social science and research that touch daily life. In the same piece where he breaks down the difficulty of policing insider trading, he also reports on how helpful extra sleep is for kids, drawing on research about school schedules and child wellbeing. That pairing reflects a consistent thread: he treats business as one part of a wider ecosystem of work, family and health, and uses evidence from studies to connect numbers and policies back to real routines and outcomes. His segments often move from a market or policy question to a practical, human one, showing how research insights filter into household decisions.
Explainer-first audio across the news cycle
McKim works in fast-moving news formats where each segment has to do a lot of work in a short time. His pieces are built as tight explainers, often packaging two distinct but complementary stories into a single broadcast slot. He distills complex topics like financial enforcement or emerging research into plain language, prioritising what listeners need to understand the stakes and what, if anything, is changing. The tone is straightforward rather than argumentative, with an emphasis on clear takeaways instead of hot takes.
Regulation, public impact and a policy lens
Before joining the business team at NPR, McKim reported on energy and environmental issues for regional public radio, covering how policy choices land on communities and industries. That background in regulation and public-impact reporting carries into his business work. He is drawn to stories where rules are in flux, enforcement is under pressure, or new evidence challenges how systems are supposed to work. Whether the subject is insider trading or children’s sleep, he looks at who sets the rules, who benefits, who is left out, and how new information might push institutions to change.
4 more business journalists.
Alex Bronzini-Vender
Alex Bronzini-Vender is a business reporter who focuses on how economic forces and corporate decisions shape specific communities and industries. He covers business for the Washington Monthly, writing reported pieces at the intersection of commerce and public life. His work reflects the magazine’s emphasis on linking markets and money to power, policy, and everyday experience. He treats business not as balance sheets and deals but as choices that affect local realities. In “Fear and Loathing in Palo Alto,” he uses a city tied to the tech sector to examine how a powerful industry influences a community. He grounds his business beat in on-the-ground consequences rather than treating corporate and financial developments in isolation.
Alex Smith
Alex Smith focuses on the business impact of enterprise technology, with a distinctive emphasis on AI literacy and skills rather than technical specifications. They write for Technology Record, covering how artificial intelligence and cloud platforms from major providers are turned into concrete programmes for organisations and governments. Their beat sits at the junction of business strategy, national digital policy and large-scale technology partnerships. They report on national AI literacy programmes and public–private partnerships, showing how policy choices, vendor capabilities and skills gaps intersect. On the business beat, they treat AI and cloud as tools for competitiveness, workforce readiness and participation in a data-driven economy. Their concise, announcement-led reporting highlights who is partnering with whom, what programme is being launched, which technologies underpin it and how it changes capability on the ground for executive readers.
Alison Durkee
Alison Durkee focuses on how law, regulation and politics create business risks for major companies and industries. She is a reporter at Forbes, where she writes news-driven explainers on complex legal and regulatory developments and their impact on corporate strategy, reputation and markets. Her coverage centers on companies under scrutiny, especially in technology and other high-growth sectors, and tracks trials, investigations and fast-changing policy fights. She breaks down lawsuits, inquiries and regulatory moves into clear parts, grounded in timelines, filings and official actions. She reports on generative artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies as tests of legal frameworks and corporate risk management, explaining how issues like intellectual property, safety compliance, consumer protection and governance can reshape product roadmaps, partnerships and investor expectations.
Alyson Shontell
Alyson Shontell covers business through the lens of leadership, using in-depth conversations with powerful executives and founders to show how their decisions shape companies, markets, and public life. She is editor in chief at Fortune, overseeing coverage across the masthead while continuing to write selected high-impact pieces. Her core work is long, reported interviews and profiles of CEOs of large companies, dominant tech firms, and fast-growing startups. She focuses on how leaders think, manage risk, make unconventional calls, and handle crises, culture, and the future of work. Her subjects include corporate chiefs, startup founders, and political figures treated as executives. She probes operating detail, governance, internal culture, and trade-offs around growth, disruption, and workplace models, using concrete examples and direct, accessible prose that foregrounds the subject’s voice while pressing for specifics.